Randa Clay is a designer and marketing consultant providing a complete package of services that includes custom web site design, blog design and template customization, as well as custom logo design, print design and production. You can find her at any of these websites: randaclay.com , randaclay.com/lumps , printables4scrapbooking.com, freestuff4kids.net

5 ways to find out what your readers are interested in reading

There is a quote by Alice MacDougall that says “In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want.” I would say this goes for blogging as well. Bloggers want readers. The way to get and keep your readers is to consistently give them the information they’re interested in. How do you find out what they’re interested in? Here are 5 ways:

1. Do you have a search form on your page? (you should) What are readers searching for? For example, I have a kids site where I have coloring pages, word searches, etc., and when I see in my stats that someone has entered something like “play money” in the search form, I make some printable play money and post it at the next opportunity.

2. What are your most popular posts? What posts have gotten the most comments? Write more like that.

3. Do a WordTracker trial or a search on Overture’s keyword tool around your main keywords. What are people searching for the most? Write posts around the items you find that are within the scope of your site.

4. Install MyBlogLog on your site and use the member pages to find out what other blogs your readers frequent, along with other things about them such as what they’ve tagged on del.icio.us, for example.

5. Where does your target audience hang out? What forums do they participate in? What problems are being discussed there? What are the topic areas in the forum? These should give you ideas about what your readers are interested in and what problems they’re trying to solve.

Now, I’m not trying to say if your blog is about underwater basketweaving, that if you find out a large number of your readers are interested in claymation that you should suddenly write lots of posts about claymation (you could start another blog about claymation and cross-promote them though). What I am saying is that if you find out that your readers are most interested in the different materials to weave their baskets with, spend more time writing about that than methods of drying out the baskets when they’re complete!